three weeks later, she had become quite indifferent 

 to my maneuvers beyond the transparent barrier 

 of her unnatural home. 



With the eighth molting her timidity returned; 

 but it was soon lost and by the time of the ninth 

 shedding she was quite her new self again. And so 

 it was with each succeeding slough until the 

 twelfth and last — it seemed as if after these subtle 

 transformations attending the hardening of the 

 test, the faculty of memory had departed also with 

 the outgrown frame, and the spider-crab, so to 

 speak, was periodically being born anew. Each 

 molting resembled the preceding one in that the 

 behavior of the crustacean was marked in a manner 

 which can be described only as a momentary rever- 

 sion to its typical traits. But there was this dif- 

 ference: with every changing of its coat, the re- 

 sumption of acquired habits was more quickly ef- 

 fected; its response to human overtures also be- 

 came eventually more pronounced and friendly 

 than ever before. The fact is that by the time it 

 reached maturity, the time of its final molting — 

 which in Little Lena's case occurred eight months 

 after the megalops stage — it had become so tract- 

 able that it learned to take food from my hand as 



[265] 



